Korean manufacturer Aurora Lite Bank sent us one of their latest flash accessories to evaluate.
The Portaflex Multiflector is a bendable 4-in-1 reflector for your speedlight. As the name suggests, it is portable, flexible, has multiple colours and works as a reflector. It has gold, silver, white and black surfaces and a flexible wire frame. The accessory attaches to your flashgun with a rubberised non-slip strap.
The strap is easy to attach and feels secure on a Nikon SB-600, with plenty more room for larger flash heads.
In its default configuration, the Multiflector is silver on one side and gold on the other.
Peel away the silver cover, flip it over the other side and you now have a modifier that’s black on one side and white on the other.
This makes it easy, in events photography, to swap between white and gold surfaces without taking the Multiflector off the flash. If you want to alternate between, say, silver and white, then you’ll need to loosen the strap and turn it round – but this doesn’t take too long.
What’s more, if you roll the Multiflector up, wrapping it around the Velcro strap, you get a snoot. Of course you can do this with any colour combination, but it makes most sense to have the black side facing inwards if you want a tightly controlled beam of light.
We found that the Portaflex Multiflector is an effective way to increase the size of your light, without the bulk of carrying more gear. The light can be made directional due to the flexibility of the reflector. However, in practice that the Multiflector perhaps isn’t quite bendy enough. We would have liked a bendable bit at the top and ribs across the panel on the inside to aid with more positioning whilst bending.
In addition, no on-camera modifier can be a substitute for a larger light source, and we found at times that better results were achievable by simply bouncing flash off the wall or ceiling where possible.
Where to buy
The price of the Aurora Portaflex Multiflector depends on your retailer. For a list of dealers, please check the Aurora Lite Bank web site.